Nicholas Maxwell – författare

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. At present scientific enquiry is shaped by the orthodox view that in accepting or rejecting theories scientists are impartial with respect to evidence and make no permanent assumptions about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this view is untenable, and that we need a new orthodoxy, which sees science as making a hierarchy of increasingly attenuated metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. This new conception has significant implications, as Maxwell explains. One is that it is part of current scientific knowledge that the universe is comprehensible, even physically comprehensible. A second is that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge. A third is that science possesses a rational, though fallible, method of discovery. A fourth is that we need a new understanding of scientific method and rationality. Maxwell points the way towards the solution, within his new conception, of long-standing philosophical problems about science, concerning simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two.

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these assumptions asserting less and less as one ascends the hierarchy.This view has significant implications: that it is part of scientific knowledge that the universe is physically comprehensible; that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge; that science possesses a rational, if fallible, method of discovery; that a new understanding of scientific method and rationality is required. Maxwell argues that this new conception makes possible a natural resolution of long-standing philosophical problems about science, regarding simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two.

How can the world we live in and see, touch, hear, and smell, the world of living things, people, consciousness, free will, meaning, and value - how can all of this exist and flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe, made up of nothing but physical entities such as electrons and quarks? How can anything be of value if everything in the universe is, ultimately, just physics? In Our Fundamental Problem Nicholas Maxwell argues that this problem of reconciling the human and physical worlds needs to take centre stage in our thinking, so that our best ideas about it interact with our attempts to solve even more important specialized problems of thought and life. When we explore this fundamental problem, Maxwell argues, revolutionary answers emerge for a wide range of questions arising in philosophy, science, social inquiry, academic inquiry as a whole, and - most important of all - our capacity to solve the global problems that threaten our future: climate change, habitat destruction, extinction of species, inequality, war, pollution of earth, sea, and air. An unorthodox introduction to philosophy, Our Fundamental Problem brings philosophy down to earth and demonstrates its vital importance for science, scholarship, education, life, and the fate of the world.

This provocative and challenging book questions how people think about what universities should seek to do and how they should respond to the grave problems of our age. It addresses issues such as: What is wisdom? Ought universities to seek, promote and teach wisdom and what would this involve? Does it mean we need a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry? What implications would the pursuit of wisdom have for science, for social inquiry and the humanities, for education? Is it reasonable to ask of universities that they take up the task of helping humanity learn how to create a wiser world? Is there a religious dimension to wisdom? What can non-academics do to encourage universities to take wisdom seriously? Would the pursuit of wisdom be possible given that universities are increasingly subjected to commercial pressures? With contributions from leading experts in various fields Wisdom in the University is essential reading for all those interested in the future of universities and philosophy of education.This book was previously published as a special issue of London Review of Education

This provocative and challenging book questions how people think about what universities should seek to do and how they should respond to the grave problems of our age. It addresses issues such as: What is wisdom? Ought universities to seek, promote and teach wisdom and what would this involve? Does it mean we need a revolution in the aims and methods of academic inquiry? What implications would the pursuit of wisdom have for science, for social inquiry and the humanities, for education? Is it reasonable to ask of universities that they take up the task of helping humanity learn how to create a wiser world? Is there a religious dimension to wisdom? What can non-academics do to encourage universities to take wisdom seriously? Would the pursuit of wisdom be possible given that universities are increasingly subjected to commercial pressures? With contributions from leading experts in various fields Wisdom in the University is essential reading for all those interested in the future of universities and philosophy of education.This book was previously published as a special issue of London Review of Education

How is it possible for the world as we experience it to exist embedded in the physical universe? How can there be sensory qualities, consciousness, freedom, science and art, friendship, love, justice—all that which gives meaning and value to life—if the world really is more or less as modern science tells us it is? This is the problem that is tackled by this book.The solution proposed is that physics describes only a selected aspect of all that exists—that aspect which determines the way events unfold. Sensory qualities, inner experiences, consciousness, meaning and value, all these exist but lie beyond the scope of physics, and of that part of science that can be reduced to physics. Furthermore, these human features of the world are to be explained and understood, not scientifically, but "personalistically," a kind of understanding distinct from, and not reducible to, science. This view that the world is riddled with what may be called "double comprehensibility" leads to a proposed solution to the philosophical mind/body problem, and to the problem of free will; it leads to a reinterpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution, and to an account of the evolution of consciousness and free will. After a discussion of the location of consciousness in the brain, the book concludes with a proposal as to how academic inquiry might be changed so that it becomes a kind of inquiry rationally designed to help humanity create a more civilized human world in the physical universe.

Is Science Neurotic? sets out to show that science suffers from a damaging but rarely noticed methodological disease — “rationalistic neurosis.” Assumptions concerning metaphysics, human value and politics, implicit in the aims of science, are repressed, and the malaise has spread to affect the whole academic enterprise, with the potential for extraordinarily damaging long-term consequences.The book begins with a discussion of the aims and methods of natural science, and moves on to discuss social science, philosophy, education, psychoanalytic theory and academic inquiry as a whole. It makes an original and compelling contribution to the current debate between those for and those against science, arguing that science would be of greater human value if it were more rigorous — we suffer not from too much scientific rationality, but too little. The author discusses the need for a revolution in the aims of science and academic inquiry in general and, in a lively and accessible style, spells out a thesis with profound importance for the long-term future of humanity.

This book gives an account of work that I have done over a period of decades that sets out to solve two fundamental problems of philosophy: the mind-body problem and the problem of induction.  Remarkably, these revolutionary contributions to philosophy turn out to have dramatic implications for a wide range of issues outside philosophy itself, most notably for the capacity of humanity to resolve current grave global problems and make progress towards a better, wiser world.     A key element of the proposed solution to the first problem is that physics is about only a highly specialized aspect of all that there is – the causally efficacious aspect.  Once this is understood, it ceases to be a mystery that natural science says nothing about the experiential aspect of reality, the colours we perceive, the inner experiences we are aware of.  That natural science is silent about the experiential aspect of reality is no reason whatsoever to holdthat the experiential does not objectively exist.A key element of the proposed solution to the second problem is that physics, in persistently accepting unified theories only, thereby makes a substantial metaphysical assumption about the universe: it is such that a unified pattern of physical law runs through all phenomena.  We need a new conception, and kind, of physics that acknowledges, and actively seeks to improve, metaphysical presuppositions inherent in the methods of physics.  The problematic aims and methods of physics need to be improved as physics proceeds.These are the ideas that have fruitful implications, I set out to show, for a wide range of issues: for philosophy itself, for physics, for natural science more generally, for the social sciences, for education, for the academic enterprise as a whole and, most important of all, for the capacity of humanity to learn how to solve the grave global problems that menace our future, and thus make progress to a better, wiser world.  It is not just science that has problematic aims; in life too our aims, whether personal, social or institutional, are all too often profoundly problematic, and in urgent need of improvement.  We need a new kind of academic enterprise which helps humanity put aims-and-methods improving meta-methods into practice in personal and social life, so that we may come to do better at achieving what is of value in life, and make progress towards a saner, wiser world.This body of work of mine has met with critical acclaim.  Despite that, astonishingly, it has been ignored by mainstream philosophy.  In the book I discuss the recent work of over 100 philosophers on the mind-body problem and the metaphysics of science, and show that my earlier, highly relevant work on these issues is universally ignored, the quality of subsequent work suffering as a result.My hope, in publishing this book, is that my fellow philosophers will cometo appreciate the intellectual value of my proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and the problem of induction, and will, as a result, join with me in attempting to convince our fellow academics that we need to bring about an intellectual/institutional revolution in academic inquiry so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to solve problems of living, including global problems, and make progress towards as good, as wise and enlightened a world as possible.

This book argues that two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of it;

We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that academic inquiry puts all four rules of rational problem solving into practice, and becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards a better world.

We urgently need to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that academic inquiry puts all four rules of rational problem solving into practice, and becomes rationally devoted to helping humanity learn how to make progress towards a better world.

Science and technology have made the modern world possible, but also created all the global problems that threaten our future: the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, mass extinction of species, environmental degradation, overpopulation, lethal modern war, and the menace of nuclear weapons. Nicholas Maxwell, world-renowned philosopher of science and author of 14 books, argues that all these problems have come about because humans have solved only the first of two great problems of learning — how to acquire scientific knowledge and technological know-how — but not the second — how to create a civilized, wise world.The key disaster of our times is that we have science without wisdom. At present, universities all over the world are devoted to the pursuit of specialized knowledge and technology, or "knowledge-inquiry". Maxwell contends that they need to be radically transformed so that their basic function becomes to help humanity tackle global problems, with a more rigorous and socially beneficial perspective he calls "wisdom-inquiry". The World Crisis — And What to Do About It spells out in detail the changes that need to be made to academic inquiry, why they need to be made, and how they would enable universities to help humanity actively and effectively tackle and solve current global problems.Related Link(s)